ATLANTIC CITY – His passes make jaws drop. He looks this way, the ball goes that way and the result is Stephon Marbury somehow finds his target. Marbury is running the Nets, getting everyone involved but in the early days of preseason, it is increasingly apparent one guy he wants to get into the offense is center Jim McIlvaine.

“He definitely is. It’s nice he looks for me,” said McIlvaine, who has averaged all of 2.4 shots in his career, so he’s used to being on the fringe of an offense. “In Seattle, we had so many scorers that were established. Gary [Payton] felt comfortable with those guys and he didn’t look to me as much as I would have liked. I can hardly blame him when you’ve got Dale Ellis, Hersey Hawkins sitting in the corner waiting on a three or Vin Baker or Detlef Schrempf waiting to get the ball. Stephon knows I’m capable of scoring and he looks for me. I’m appreciative of it.”

Marbury, for all his seemingly endless offensive skills, spends equal time preaching defense, a McIlvaine specialty. Still, Marbury figures an offensive reward here and there will spark him even more the other way.

“Definitely. I think if we can get him going, get him playing the way he knows how, it will make difference as far as guys coming into the paint,” said Marbury. “On offense, he can definitely be a presence inside with putbacks, tip-ins, dunks. He’s been sort of lethargic. I don’t think he’s playing with the same fire he played with in Washington and Seattle.”

But that’s just McIlvaine working his way back into shape following his shoulder surgery and a pre-training-camp back ailment. McIlvaine, who worked on his shot during his summer rehab, insists there is no need to worry about his defense.

“My defense is always there. That’s what I look forward to. Throughout my whole career, whether or not I got touches with the ball, I could always do something on defense,” said McIlvaine.

McIlvaine has averaged one block every 5.7 minutes in his career – that’s nearly six a game. That’s what he does best. He is one of the game’s best “block-shotters,” according to the inimitable Romanian style of Gheorghe Muresan, who gets no argument from assistant Jim Lynam.

“You can’t get a better guy than McIlvaine. If he only handled the ball one time in a game as opposed to seven times, that’s no big deal with him. In my opinion, he’s one of the top shot-blockers in the NBA,” Lynam said. “His blocks are not of the routine variety. He comes from nowhere to block dunks, to block weakside layups. That’s big, especially for a team like ours that wants to get out and go off those plays. Stephon is so exceptional in appreciating things like that. McIlvaine gets a block, he gets it right back from Steph. Steph rewards his guys.”

But it might not be all that easy. Marbury, who each days looks better than he did the day before, must be watched constantly. His passes come from nowhere.

“I told our guys, ‘You can’t move your eyes off me for a second. As soon as the defender turns, it’s going to hit you in the hands,'” Marbury said.

They should be so lucky.

“It’s fun. He challenges you,” McIlvaine said. “You’ve always got to look out of the corner of your eye even if he doesn’t have the ball. It’s almost like a contest for him to see if he can hit you in the back of the head ’cause you’re not paying attention.”